


Gifts

by La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)



Category: Henry IV (Parts 1 & 2) - Shakespeare
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Historical, Medieval, Politics, historiographical dodginess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord, be more myself." And what was he but himself? And what was himself but a shadow of his father's own deceptions, biding his time before reaching for the crown?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gifts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angevin2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/gifts).



> Thanks so much to Rosamund and Gileonnen for beta-reading.

Hal had a gift.

 

It was a gift he used with utter impunity and no shame whatsoever, whether to get him one extra serving of wine from the susceptible Mistress Quickly or his father's (albeit short-lived) goodwill.

 

It was Hal's gift that he could read people as Humphrey and John read books. Their faces seemed to him a record written in the clearest script, weaknesses red-lettered as in a Book of Hours. It was not his fault, surely, that he could see such things. Perhaps it was wicked that he chose to read, and to act upon what he read.

 

He could not help but wonder at what might have transpired, had his cousin Richard possessed such a gift. He might have read in those black-and-red-lettered lines Hal's father's fears, might have spoken just the right words to change his mind. For that was a gift Richard had possessed--that of weaving words together to make and unmake as only a king could, if he had simply been able to _see_.

 

But it was a king's prerogative to be blind to what displeased him, and so Richard had closed his eyes. And for that choice, that retreat behind the fortress of his own will, he had lost his throne and his life.

 

Hal had lingered in King's Langley beside the hastily-erected tomb, fit better for a monk than a king, and swore to himself on Richard's departed soul that he would never let himself be taken blind. And so he watched, silent and sure, as his father's throne--precarious in the best of times--began to slip from his fingers, as his face grew haggard from lack of sleep, his eyes haunted by a dead man's shadow.

 

It was not filial piety that drew Hal back to his side--that had died with Richard, with the last scrap of belief in his father's honour--but cat-eyed curiosity.

 

At first, it was predictable enough--his father raged, stormed, spun out a hundred variations on the theme of Hal's insolence--but there was something unsettling in his father's face. A spark in his eyes, which followed Hal persistently, as if making some arcane alchemical calculation.

 

His gaze did not leave Hal's face as he began his rebuttal, and Hal could feel it even as he lowered his own eyes to the ground, appropriately submissive. It was not in his interests to lie, at least not baldly. To lie to the king was in some quarters termed treason, and Hal had no desire to set that particular precedent for when the crown was his.

 

And so he demurred, dancing through a haze of half-truths and forming his words with care. His father did not have Richard's capricious temper, but he was not a man to be trifled with.

 

"God pardon thee!" The bark of laughter framing those words prompted Hal to jerk his head upward, eyes widening as he saw the expression on his father's face.

 

_I know what you are_. He did not speak the words aloud but the unexpected smirk--a sharp, aged reflection of the smile Hal had seen reflected so often in the distorted curves of goblets or rippling across the surface of a cup of sack--writ them large upon his father's face. Even as he spoke further, the words seemed to float past Hal, insubstantial as soap bubbles, so focused was he on the minute shifts in his father's face.

 

Only the name Bolingbroke shattered the reverie, so long had it been since he'd heard it spoken aloud. He had thought Bolingbroke dead and forgotten ever since Henry IV had come into being.

 

And Bolingbroke was not the only resurrected ghost. _I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts, loud shouts and salutations from their mouths, even in the presence of the crowned King_. That his father would dare to refer to Richard thus revealed the depth of his displeasure.

 

Hal narrowed his eyes. His father seemed lost in memory, but his condemnation of Richard's shallowness and vanity was perfectly aimed. Hal could not help but recall his cousin now, grace undiminished even by death, even as his father spat his words, each consonant sharpened by contempt--_being daily swallowed by men's eyes, they surfeited with honey and began to loathe the taste of sweetness_. Hal's mouth tightened as he forced back the question he longed to ask, if his father too had surfeited with honey and for that, he'd stolen Richard's crown.

 

He could have laughed, but did not, instead bowed his head once more. "I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord, be more myself."

 

And what was he but himself? And what was himself but a shadow of his father's own deceptions, biding his time before reaching for the crown? His father was no Hotspur, no cannon to be aimed and primed--neither of them bore any resemblance to that bright-haloed Northman whose name served as standard for what ought to have been a hopeless rebellion. Nay, they were both too tainted to be Hotspur.

 

It ought not have surprised him that his father thought him capable of treason. Richard hadn't thought Henry Bolingbroke capable and it had been his undoing; his father would never make the same mistake. He would instead assume that Hal was utterly capable of what he himself had done, and why should he not?

 

Hal laughed, bitterly. "Do not think so," he said, though even he wasn't certain he believed the words. It was not his father or Richard he invoked then but Hotspur, gallant and brave, a paragon not to be emulated but to be cut down. _I shall make this northern youth exchange his glorious deeds for my indignities_. Just as Richard had exchanged his glorious crown for his cousin Henry's exile--exile indeed from this breathing world and not simply England.

 

His father watched him, no doubt listening, but, just as Hal had done before, observing every tic and every minute movement across Hal's face. The suggestion of a smile hovered about his lips as he confirmed Hal's charge and accepted the pact between them, sealed in the promised blood of one Harry Percy, the Hotspur of the North.

 

***

 

The crown glittered in the candlelight, so close he could touch it. Beside it his father lay cold and silent, fingers stilled and breath stopped.

 

At least, Hal thought to himself, he'd waited till the king was dead.

 

He reached out and picked up the crown. It weighed upon his head like iron, but still he smiled.

 

_Le roi est mort. Vive le roi_.


End file.
